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A mechanic at Z&J Automotive, 66 Braley Road, called to his neighbors at Raycon Construction early Friday afternoon, asking for help and a hose, news partner The Herald News reported.

“The guy ran out yelling 'fire,'” said Nelson Oliveira of Raycon. “We tried to help, but it just blasted across the building.”

“In two minutes, it went from small to out of control,” said Joe Sousa, Oliveira's co-worker.

“The call came in at 1:15 p.m. for a fire in the first bay,” Freetown Fire Chief Gary Silvia said. “I had fire blowing out the door and out the back when I arrived. The first bay was totally involved. It was rapidly going across the roof line.”

Silvia said he saw the steel walls of the building shift and bow when he arrived, the steel being cooked to softness by the 1,200- to 1,400-degree heat inside. He made certain there was no one left inside, Silvia said. As volunteer firefighters arrived, he ordered them to set up outside and fight the fire from there.

“We were afraid of a building collapse,” he said. “The walls were already bowing out.”

Two hours after the fire started, it was still burning, producing thick gray smoke as firefighters opened new seams in the foam insulation panels that lined the interior of the roof and the walls.

Clouds of steam poured out of the building as they poured water in.

Metal walls crackled and bent as the water hit, several times causing the building to shudder as the steel moved in response to the heat and the stream from the hose.

The fire started in the western-most bay rented by Z&J Automotive. Z&J Automotive buys cars at auction that are damaged from accidents.

“We store them here,” said Souhad Saliba, an employee. “When we have enough for a container, we ship them to Lebanon.”

The cars are repaired in Lebanon and resold. Behind the building, there were several dozen cars stored, mostly Hondas, Toyotas, Suzukis and Subarus. Many had been cut into pieces or stripped of their tires, engines and interiors.

“I was here this morning, and everything was OK,” Saliba said. “Some of the guys were working on a truck.”

Raycon is based in Braintree but stored concrete forms and equipment in east Freetown. Michael Bianchini, the supervisor at the site, worked on his cellphone as he watched his floor buggies and leveling equipment getting destroyed. The equipment is used to insure that floors and walls are plumb and level over large expanses, like the floor of a Walmart or the foundation for a factory.

“All of my expensive stuff was in that middle bay,” he said, shaking his head. All of the walls around the bay door were scorched. “All of the riders and the floor machines and the surveying machines, all in there.”

Despite that, Bianchini said, he had lined up enough equipment to keep all of his appointments for work scheduled for Monday.

“It is a slow time of year for us,” he said, “and we have some of our equipment at job sites, so we were a little bit lucky.”

He added: “This went up in minutes, just minutes. By the time we grabbed the extinguishers, it was out of control. We just got out.”

No one was injured, Silvia said.

“It is still burning up in the roof,” he said, two hours after firefighters responded. “We will have to get some back-end loaders in to open this up so we can get it completely out.”

Freetown had 22 firefighters on the scene and a company from Lakeville arrived to assist. Dartmouth firefighters covered the Freetown fire station while the Freetown companies were occupied, Silvia said.